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tv   CNN Newsroom  CNN  November 13, 2012 8:00am-9:00am PST

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well-behaved child, i know that that parent can kick back and take it easy. they don't need to be so busy because they did their work early. if a parent has not set boundaries, if a parent has not taught a child to self-control, they're the ones that are going to be running through the restaurant, eating off other people's plates, yelling and screaming and knocking into things, and everybody's going to be staring at them. those parents that didn't do it right to begin with are the ones that are going to wear themselves out by the time the child is 5 years old. if you do it early on, then it gets easier later. >> thanks, dr. phil. i'm carol costello, thank you for joining me today. "cnn newsroom" continues right now with alina cho. >> hey, carol, thank you very much. i'm in for ashleigh banfield today. we are so glad you're with us today. and let's get started. first up, we just can't call it the petraeus scandal anymore. today, the u.s. general in
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charge of allied troops in afghanistan, the top commander john allen is himself the subject of a pentagon investigation of allegedly inappropriate communications with jill kelley. yes, that jill kelley, we're talking about the same tampa housewife whom david petraeus' then mistress paula broadwell apparently saw as rival. a whole new chapter in a saga that since last friday has been one bombshell after another. and so far, all of them have something to do with kelley. she's a volunteer military liaison at the air force base, home of the u.s. central command in tampa, florida. kelley complained to the fbi last spring when paula broadwell was having an affair with petraeus allegedly harassed her with jealous e-mails. petraeus admitted the affair with broadwell but denies any elicit contact with kelley. so does general allen who was scheduled for a senate confirmation hearing this very week to become nato's supreme
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allied commander. today that's on hold, but he will continue in his position as the investigation continues. and all of that as the pentagon digs through 20,000 to 30,000 pages of e-mails and other communications, many with kelley over a two-year period. each revelation brings 100 new questions and my colleague chris lawrence joins me from the pentagon to answer some of them. chris, so many twists and turns in this story. it's hard to keep track, quite frankly. let's begin with general john allen. we're talking about 20,000 to 30,000 pages of e-mails, many of them to jill kelley. it really seems like an incredible amount of e-mail traffic between a high-ranking general and a woman who really is just a volunteer for the military. how unusual is this? and what does it all mean? >> well, on the face of it, alina, it's staggering that sheer amount of documents that you mentioned, 30,000. we're told by a u.s. official that all 30,000 do relate
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directly to general allen. but, when you peel back the layer a little bit, not all 30,000 may contain inappropriate content. in other words, some of them may have been something simply as a name in the subject line or something mentioned in the e-mail that there may be mixed into that a good number of legitimate e-mails between the two or concerning general allen and some in there which they thought may be appropriate that they're going to take a look at. general allen is telling defense officials that we heard this morning that he's done nothing wrong, and although his nomination hearing has been postponed, they have left him in the position of isaf commander so far. >> and from what i understand from your reporting earlier, chris, he'd already traveled to washington for this hearing, right? >> alina, it was supposed to begin in 48 hours on thursday morning. he was going up to the hills.
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so this really blind sided a lot of people coming so quickly. >> and all the while this -- while this is an internal pentagon investigation, this other fbi investigation in to petraeus and paula broadwell continues. and last night, a pretty significant development seemingly as you know, chris, the fbi conducted a search of paula broadwell's home in north carolina. they were there for about four hours, carted out about six boxes, including her computer, a hard drive. you see them there last night, and didn't leave until about 1:00 in the morning. i guess my question is this, if this was simply an extramarital affair and nothing more, what in the world was the fbi doing there last night? >> well, we are told by a u.s. official that the fbi did go to paula broadwell's home to specifically look for any classified information, but it was more along the lines of trying to button up any loose ends. and this official tells cnn that he does not expect there to be
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any criminal charges that come out of this. we know that paula broadwell showed the fbi that there were classified information on her computer. but both she and david petraeus have said that information did not come from petraeus. paula broadwell has a lot of other sources out there. and remember, she did have some security clearance as a former -- and really is a reservist in a military intelligence officer. >> chris lawrence at the pentagon, many thanks to you. members of congress have expressed outrage over a lack of communication to the point of saying their lack of involvement in this could be criminal. watch. >> you do have a fiduciary responsibility to tell the chairman and the ranking member of both the house and senate of the intelligence committee. and if they were not informed, and looks like senator feinstein was not informed, then something is grossly wrong. those people have to know. >> a lot of questions about who knew what when. let's bring in cnn senior congressional correspondent dana bash on capitol hill for us.
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dana, great to see you. congress as you know back to work today. they'll be holding this closed door briefing today on that attack in benghazi back on 9/11 and a hearing later this week. a lot of people saying, you know, doesn't really matter that general petraeus is not the cia director anymore that he should still appear, he should still testify. at this point, what from the odds that's going to happen? >> in public this week, not necessarily in public just in general this week i should say, the odds of that happening, we're told, are not very high. however, you're absolutely right that we are hearing from democrats and republicans that they think it is imperative to hear from david petraeus about benghazi because he was the cia director at the time of the attack and he had been there very recently and got firsthand information on what had gone on there. so definitely we are hearing even from the intelligence chairwoman dianne feinstein she
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does intend to call him in to closed door session to kind of debrief him at some point in the near future. >> dana, i want you to listen to this because we heard from senator susan collins. she talked about her desire to have petraeus testify on the benghazi attack. watch. >> and i think it's absolute ll imperative that general petraeus come and testify. he was cia director at the time of the attack. he visited libya after the attack. he has a great deal of information that we need in order to understand what went wrong, how this attack occurred, why americans lost their lives, and most of all, what we can do to lessen the chances of this kind of attack on american citizens happening in the future. >> but senator, since you're -- >> all right. so more of what you were just talking about a moment ago, dana. meanwhile, simultaneously, a lot of outrage that the house and
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senate intelligence committees were not notified about this until late last week. is that outrage continuing on capitol hill today? >> it is continuing. and it will no doubt get escalate even more. and the reason is just because having covered this place a long time, that tends to happen when members of congress come back into town. they haven't been here. so they're going to come back to town, they're going to be talking to one another, talking to the press corps in the hall ways and members of the senate intelligence committee are going to discuss that very thing. to discuss what the chairwoman of the intelligence committee dianne feinstein has said. she's very angry about the fact they weren't informed. and as you mentioned at the beginning of the segment, even some members of congress are saying that was breaking the law. because the congressional producer found there actually is a specific law back to 1947 that says dealing with these kinds of
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matters of national security, intelligence committee members, the people here on capitol hill as a matter of oversight must be informed and that simply did not happen until after the fbi had already concluded there was no national security risk. the question that people here are asking. what about all of that time while the fbi was looking into it? and maybe they had suspected there was a national security risk. why weren't we, the people who were supposed to have oversight in the intelligence community informed of that possibility? >> so many questions. more than answers and when you hear the word criminal, dana, of course, that gets a lot of people going. dana bash on capitol hill for us. dana, thank you very much. many of the fbi protocols on reporting criminal investigations to the white house and others actually stem way back to the watergate scandal. an investigation back then uncovered abuses and mistakes and the justice department has since made changes. i have a cold... i took dayquil,
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welcome back. 49 days and counting until we reach the so-called fiscal cliff. when the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts will take place. unless the president and congress can reach a deal. as you can imagine, everyone wants president obama's ear on this issue. and today, the president's going to meet with labor leaders. cnn white house correspondent brianna keilar with a look at that. great to see you. a labor, of course, intent on making sure the president keeps his promise on those tax hikes for the wealthy. but what can we expect from this meeting today? we're talking about one hour with two dozen labor leaders. is there anything that can really be accomplished? >> reporter: i don't know anything really tangible is going to come out of this. this is a big kickoff for president obama, having meetings this week. today he's meeting with labor
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leaders, also liberal leaders. tomorrow, he's meeting with business leaders. obviously he needs to span the interest of these interests, i should say of these groups. as he tries to work out a deal with republicans and then he'll be meeting with the top democrat and the top republican in the house and the senate here at the white house on friday. so this is really him, we're told by white house officials listening to the concerns of some of these labor and liberal leaders. and what they want is to make sure that taxes on the wealthy increase to obviously, if that's going to be a part of averting this fiscal cliff. it's also very important to note what they don't want to happen, they don't want changes to entitlements like medicare and social security. but the bottom line is, if president obama is able to strike a deal with house republicans, it's kind of like almost all of the parties in play here, all of the stake holders who are lobbying for the president's ear and want something out of this deal almost all of them are likely going to be unhappy.
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so i think a big part of this meeting is about keeping all of these folks onboard and at least making them feel like he's listening to them. >> that's light. we're going to give a little bit -- you better give us a little too, right? is the bottom line. >> exactly. >> meanwhile, you mentioned that meeting with business leaders tomorrow that the ceos of g.e. and american express will be there. and they've been saying a lot obviously big supporters of the republicans, saying a lot that they can't do any hiring, can't do any spending because of this gridlock with the fiscal cliff. and yet, we're not really hearing from small business leaders, which we heard a lot about on the campaign trail. do they get a say in this? >> i think the white house would say that small business leaders do get a say in this. now, tomorrow, it is the bigger companies, you're right. pepsi will be here, chevron will be here, xerox will be here. and some of these business leaders are folks who did support president obama in his reelection. the hope here for the white
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house is that some of these leaders who are actually supporting an increase in taxes for wealthier americans, some of whom would be businesses that that will perhaps give some house republicans some cover to say, okay, you know business, if some business is behind this, maybe we can go along with it. i think the white house right now feels like they have a lot of leverage i'll tell you i spoke with a republican source who didn't think the support of some of these business leaders is really going to convince the house republicans that they need to budge on increasing these tax rates. >> well, somebody's going to have to budge, right? we don't have much time left, 49 days. brianna keilar at the white house. thank you.
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welcome back. john mcafee, does that ring a bell? your computer could be a mcafee
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product. the millionaire is now wanted for questioning in the murder of an american ex-patriot in belize. mcafee left the internet security firm he founded back in 1994, and after that, he moved to belize four years ago. police say the victim gregory fall was found dead with a gun shot wound to the back of his head at his home over the weekend. in an interview with "wired" magazine, he says he knows nothing about the death of his neighbor and he says when police came to search his property, he hid by burying himself in the sand with a cardboard box over his head so he could breathe. he says if they find him, they will kill him. richard roth is following all the developments for us and he joins me now. this is such a bizarre story, richard. what's the latest? >> it's not the only wild story going around these days. well, according to the writer for "wired," he had another phone interview earlier today with mcafee. and he says in these tweets that mcafee is saying power was just
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cut to the house i'm in, i think this is it. and in a later tweet, i will not turn myself in. the police have set up road blocks across the country to trap me in. he is described as a person of interest, no formal charges against him. the police telling cnn over the phone that someone was detained for questioning, but no formal charges made against anyone. now another writer jeff wise told cnn earlier today that when he talked again to mcafee and spent a lot of time with him he and others who came in contact with this former security expert were apprehensive. >> i'll put it this way. listen, we're all innocent until proven guilty. but the people in his community were frightened of him. i was frightened. the last time i visited him, he invited me to spend the night at his house, stay for dinner, and yet the hairs on the back of my neck were up. >> he definitely had entanglements, contentious
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arguments with a lot of people there in belize, but no formal accusations yet. >> yeah, i read that interview, it's bizarre what he says. he thinks he's being framed by the government. meanwhile, he also says he loves his country, doesn't want to leave belize, he's believed to be inside the country, right, richard? >> not that far from mexico, if he decided he didn't love belize that much. >> tell me more about his relationship with the victim. because when you're looking at these cases, obviously, if he's the prime suspect, you have to consider motive. would he have had a motive? >> well, sounds like a familiar neighborly argument, barking dogs, it may have come down to that. we may not know for sure. the neighbor shot in the head complained that the dogs of mcafee were very loud, barking, had trespassed on his property, mcafee said that the dogs were poisoned friday night according to one of the interviews he did with "wired." >> and the government says that's categorically not true.
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>> right. >> richard roth following the developments for us. ank you very much. bayer advanced aspirin. in fact, in a recent survey, 95% of people who tried it agreed that it relieved their headache fast. visit fastreliefchallenge.com today for a special trial offer.
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all right. have you noticed that interest rates have hit record lows? so now may be the time to take advantage of the moment and refinance or buy that new car. alison kosik at the new york stock exchange. i have to tell you, i am now in the process of refinancing my home for the second time in two years. last year sailed through the process, this year, they keep asking for more and more documents. so the good news is, interest rates are lower, bad news is, little harder to refinance, isn't it? >> it really is. and you're one of the people who is taking advantage of these historic rates and the fed has promised to keep rates low until
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2015. but would you believe that three out of four americans aren't more inclined to take out a loan even with lower rates, according to the new research from bankrate.com. so what if you do want to get a loan with one of these low rates? how do you go about doing that? so we ask greg mcbride, the senior financial analyst with bankrate.com and here's what he had to say. first, good credit is key in this whole process. a score above 700 could even get you an interest rate below the inflation level and that means you could essentially be borrowing money for free. but your credit score isn't the only factor that lenders consider in this. proof of income, that's important. and you'll also need a sizable down payment if you're looking for a home or car loan. now, if your credit is less than stellar, there are ways to improve it. disputing errors on your credit reports and paying down your debt. those will both boost your score. one of the most important things you can do when considering a loan, yeah, go ahead and shop around. it's tedious, but try to get at least three quotes before making
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your decision because you know what, alina? doing all that extra leg work could wind up saving you hundreds of dollars in the long run. alina? >> all right. great advice as always, alison kosik, great to see you. motor trend magazine has named the car of the year and you're probably thinking mercedes, bmw, no. the staff unanimously, rather, picked the tesla model "s." it's the first time an electric car has ever won that magazine's top honor. you know the ones you plug in. motor trend calls the model "s" as smoothly effortless as a rolls royce. they cost anywhere from $50,000 to nearly $100,000. still a bargain compared to a rolls royce. here's something that might come as a shock to you, the u.s. will overtake saudi arabia as the world's leading oil producer in five to eight years and will be energy independent by 2030. that's the latest estimate from
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the international energy agency. what the agency calls a dramatic reversal will occur in large part because of the recent resurgence in oil and gas production and the push to make cars and trucks more fuel-efficient. all right. it's that time again. let's take a quick check of the new york stock exchange big board. currently, the dow is up about 64 points, markets have been open for about two hours, we will continue to monitor it throughout the day. [ male announcer ] this is sheldon, whose long dy setting up the news
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new nectresse. sweetness naturally. all right. welcome back. can you believe the presidential election was a week ago? one week ago? well, republicans aren't exactly bragging about what happened a week ago today, but somewhat overlooked in their second straight presidential election loss is a surge in gop
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governors. listen to this, once all of the wincers take office, 30 of the 50 states will have republican chief executives, the most in 12 years. they'll becnn's wolf blitzer will join me to talk about the state of the states and the state of the gop. hey, wolf, great to see you. i want you to watch the screen here. because louisiana's bobby jindal is taking over the leadership of the republican governor's association, you know that. he's bringing some tough love to the party. listen to what he told politico. quote, we cannot be, we must not be the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys. the reality is, we have to be a party of solutions and not just bumper sticker slogans. he called on republicans to stop being the stupid party. as my friend soledad likes to say, a come to jesus moment for the gop, wolf? >> well, they certainly thought they were going to win the presidential race. they went in convinced that all the so-called mainstream polls were wrong, that they were
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oversampling for democrats and undersampling for republicans. if anything, we undersampled the number of democrats that would show up. democrats were clearly much more enthusiastic than republicans and the republicans and bobby jindal, the governor of louisiana recognizes this, they have a problem right now. they have a problem recruiting minorities, whether african-americans or hispanics. they have a problem with women out there, certainly the two senatorial candidates didn't help the republican brand talking about rape and abortion and all of those controversial comments. there's a lot of other problems the republicans have right now, and this is one of those moments they have to reassess where they're going. i sense now that they're really anxious to reach out to hispanics, alina because all of a sudden lindsay graham is teaming up with chuck schumer, the democratic senator from new york for comprehensive immigration reform. all of a sudden that's on the agenda right now.
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certainly the comments that mitt romney made during his effort to get the republican presidential nomination about self-deportation or for illegal immigrants, that came back to haunt them. they got a lot of problems, a lot of reassessing to do. and what jindal is now saying and others are saying it, it's time to take a better look where the republican party stands. >> yeah, particularly when you look ahead to 2016, never too early to do that, right, wolf? and you look at states like texas, that could be in play, which seemed unbelievable just a couple of years ago. meanwhile, let's talk about the democrats, because as you know, generally there's a little bit of musical chairs that goes on in the cabinet in the second term. and that is the case this time around, widely expected that u.s. ambassador to the u.n. susan rice going to be secretary of state, that could be a very ugly confirmation hearing. and senator john kerry talked about as defense secretary, wolf? >> yeah, there's been reports that john kerry, who i always assumed wanted to be secretary of state could be the next
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secretary of defense leon panetta has made it clear he's ready to move on and go back to california after all these years in washington, former cia director, now the secretary of defense. i don't know how long that will last. but if kerry is nominated to be the secretary of defense, that does leave hillary clinton's job at the state department open. and susan rice was always -- at least i always believed she was the front-runner until those controversial comments she made about the benghazi killing of the u.s. ambassador and three other americans on those five sunday talk shows. and the republicans really have been going after her. and if the president stands firm and nominates her to be the next secretary of state, it will be a bruising confirmation hearing, there's no doubt about that. my p sense is, he probably wants her to be the secretary of state, but we'll see if -- how that confirmation process will go forward. the democrats do have the majority in the senate. i think it's going to be 55 if you bring in both of those independent senators, bernie sanders, angus king, from maine,
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55/45, but there could be filibusters, who knows, in the senate, anything important to get done, you always need 60 votes. so we'll see what happens on that front. there's going to be -- there's an opening, as you know, at the cia right now with general petraeus gone who will be the cia director? this whole national security team is going to require some reshuffling. it's a major headache that the president has, but that's why he's president of the united states, commander in chief, dealing with these kinds of issues. >> that's right. and john allen for now keeps his post. all right. wolf, great to see you as always. and be sure to join wolf today at 4:00 p.m. eastern time in the "situation room" right here on cnn. those surprising little things she does
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men of power and their fall from grace. their ranks are legend, former cia director david petraeus, the case often involves sex. why in this age of 24 hours news and social media do they take that one fatal step that brings them down? martin savage now with some possible answers. >> politics and sex scandals are nothing new in the u.s. in fact, they date back to our country's beginning. >> of course. i mean, look, if we wanted to
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see what our founding fathers' behavior was like in philadelphia in 1776, we may not like all of the answers. >> more recently, president john f. kennedy's affairs were notorious. lyndon johnson was such a man with the ladies that he allegedly had a buzzer installed in his congressional office to alert him when lady byrd johnson was on the way. journalists never reported on things back in the day, but that eventually changed, so did technology. and recently it's the digital footprint that have led to some spectacular falls. remember congressman anthony weiner? he tweeted a photo of his privates. when the story broke, he denied it, claiming his twitter account had been hacked. eventually, he fessed up and resigned. >> i apologize first and foremost to my wife and to my family. >> there was client number nine, aka elliott spitzer, when investigators followed his money, it revealed he thousands
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as a regular client of a call girl. he too stepped down. >> i've acted in a way that violates the obligations to my family and that violates my or any sense of right and wrong. >> and now comes general petraeus. done in by a simple click of the mouse. >> e-mail traffic is -- it's amazing that e-mail is still being used in such a careless and reckless fashion because it's just evidence against you. >> modern science can also play a role, remember president clinton and the dna discovered on a certain blue dress belonging to a white house intern. >> i did not have sexual relations with that woman. >> so if technology makes hiding an affair almost impossible, why do powerful people still think they can get away with it? >> it's about narcissism and the will to power. and people that strive that mightily and they start believing their own press. they start feeling omnipotent.
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>> but of course, they aren't omnipotent and it comes with collateral damage called families. >> all right, martin savage joins us now from atlanta. march t marty, it was like a walk down memory lane, but we in the media love to build these people up and tear them down, don't we? >> well, and it's not just the media. i think it's part of our society. we love celebrity. and we celebrate it. we love to see people rise and then when they fall, well, we're very happy to watch that, as well. some have argued here that it's really not the public officials have become more dastardly, it's as a society, we have grown, well, maybe more hypocritical, more prudish that we look at these public officials and in many cases, they were serving as well as public officials. their fall was, of course, a private matter between husband and wives and their families. should we have let these people go because they were so good over something that was private? i think that's something that society is going to debate for some time. the case obviously can be made
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for general petraeus. he was the head of the cia for that matter and you would have to wonder if there was any possible security breach there. so his departure is not, perhaps, the general rule here. but otherwise, these were people who were thought to be effective public officials who now left because of a very private, very bad private handlings. >> great story, great reporting, martin savage, thank you. better technology helps make you a better investor. with our revolutionary e-trade 360 dashboard you see exactly where your money is and what it's doing live. our e-trade pro platform offers powerful functionality that's still so usable you'll actually use it. and our mobile apps are the ultimate in wherever whenever investing. no matter what kind of investor you are, you'll find the technology to help you become a better one at e-trade.
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the david petraeus sex scandal has snared the top u.s. military commander in afghanistan. john allen is now under investigation for allegedly sending inappropriate messages to jill kelley. yes, the same woman who claims she received threatening e-mails from petraeus' mistress paula broadwell. and we're not just talking about a couple of e-mails. pentagon investigators are coming through 20 to 30,000 pages of documents.
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with me now is retired u.s. army general and cnn contributor spider marks joining me via skype from virginia. when you look at the sheer number of documents that they're looking at, 20,000 to 30,000 pages of documents, how do you react to that? what was your first thought? >> well, if true, if it is that type of volume of traffic, this is one busy guy spending a lot of time talking to an honorary ambassador between the community and tampa in the air force base. he's got a lot of discretionary time on his hand and, frankly, that's not the case. so it's very, very troubling to see that an individual like this would at least put himself in a situation where the perception can be nothing but bad and end up wandering down this path of trying to find out what's wrong. it could be entirely innocuous, but that needs to be determined and we're going to have to spend
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time and money figuring that out. >> that's right. and for now, it remains an internal pentagon investigation. meanwhile, you've been in the trenches, you're a career military man, you've been everything from a platoon leader to a commanding general, i want to talk a little bit about morale. as this investigation continues, general allen continues in his post as the top u.s. commander in afghanistan overseeing 68,000 troops there. does this compromise his leadership skills at all? and what does it do to morale? >> well, let me answer that on a couple of levels. first of all, activities like this, and the possibility that there might have been indiscretions like this from the very top guy gives a lot of fodder to those young troops. and so right now in a very cynical way and a very sarcastic way they're having fun with all of this, which is truly unfortunate because this is the senior guy. i can tell you what the forward
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operating base communications look like right now and they're extremely colorful. and so what it does for the senior commanders, they are still in the room with the boss and they're going to look the t four-star in the eye and say, look, sir, we're on your team until given an order that directs us to do otherwise, you're the boss, you're in charge, we're here to serve and to make right. we're also here to provide input and continue to fight this fight. let's not forget, we're in combat in afghanistan. the senior leaders are going to hunker down and make this right. they're not going out of their way to protect the boss but the single most damaging thing about all of this is the four-star is now distracted. he's now concerned about how he's coming across to his subordinates and the rest of his team, and his contemporaries and the governance part of afghanistan, the civilian leadership and the department of defense, he's now concerned whether he has credibility. until relieved of command, either through proper channels
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or sadly if there's something else to this if determined, he needs to drive on, and he will spend time worry iing about his reputation. >> you know about the inner workings of the military. talk about credibility. what point, even if it's found there was no wrong doing on part of general allen, do you look at him and say, you know, he has a reputation problem and he may be howl step down. >> absolutely. it's very, very true what you just said. concern is -- we used to have this expression in the military, boss, you're burning too much daylight on me. in other words, you're paying too much attention to me. there are a gazillion things we have to do and now i'm on the phone about you about some imprudent activity on my part potentially. that needed to be off your list of thing ys you need to care
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about. that four-star if this get as to far down the road, if it's a cul-de-sac where there might be an exit he needs to raise his hand, say look, boss, you're spending too much time on me, let me get oust the way, i'm a distraction and i can't allow myself to be a distraction. that's a personal thought process that that commander knees to have. personally with his family and contemporaries and buddies and boss. >> looking in your crystal ball there, up or down, if you had to guess, do you think general allen steps down? >> i think -- i have no additional data, alana. this is very, very difficult. if this continues on for another week and a half or so, he needs to continue to drive on in afghanistan, maybe until his change of command. but that's it. he shouldn't go forward. he's been nominated or his nomination to be the supreme allied commander in europe is on hold.
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i can't progress flossnosticate. sun needs to say we need to move on. there are great folks in uniform that can take that job tomorrow. >> i lied. one last question. congress holding a briefing and hearing later this week on the u.s. consulate attack in benghazi. a lot of talk that -- a lot of people saying it doesn't matter that general patreaus is no longer cia director he needs to get in and testify. he's the one who knows what happened. he's the one who knows if there's was a security lapse. what are your thoughts on that? >> well, he certainly can be subpoenaed by congress, it wouldn't surprise me if he is subpoenaed, and i believe he should raise his hand and move forward. there are so many things buzzing around about dave patreaus and his affair with paula broadwell he probably has a defense attorney saying look, we have to
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be kaube cautious, personally y may be at risk based on anything you say. i hope he has an opportunity to testify, shed light on what he knows and clearly he was at the center of this. when you said you lied you had no intent to deceive and that's important. >> colorful commentary coming from you spider. general "spider" marks. ♪we're two of a kind ♪two of a kind ♪it's my observation ♪we're two of a kind ♪like peas in a pod ♪and birds of a feather ♪alone or together you'll find ♪that we are two-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo, of a kind♪
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we don't want to forget the people affected by superstorm sandy. we have an update. a good sign. gas rationing is set to end in new jersey. power problems in new york, however. the long island power authority, lipa, expects to restore power to many customers today but only, they say, if it's safe. residents are understandably very angry over the pace of the repairs. >> it's just dark and cold, that's pretty much sizes it up. >> i don't think the management's unprepared for this. at the end of the day this was a monumental task. >> it's like going on and on. end it. >> you start to get aggravated. we deserve better than this. >> new york governor andrew cuomo promising to hold utility companies accountable. >> i'm going to do a thorough review/investigation and a very
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serious one and they will be held accountable for past performance and then we also have to get smart about this and we have to make sure that we're prepared for when this happened again because i believe this will happen again. and i think anyone who says, well this was a once in a lifetime, once every 100 years, that is denial, and i think it's a serious mistake and i'm not going to govern this way. >> cuomo's put the price tag of the disaster in new york around $30 billion and he says he's going to ask the federal government to pay for most of it. this quick note if you want to help, head to our website impact your world, go to cnn.com/impact. today i want to end the show with the oxford dictionary's word of the year announced this morn. not the american version's of the year which is giff, animated
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pictures on the internet. i like the english version much more. take a look at this. omnishambles, a situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, characterized by a string of blunders and miscalculations. and given all of if the scandalous news just over the past couple of days, it's a word that david patreaus, lance armstrong, todd akin and probably a couple of others may want to look up. thanks for watching "cnn newsroom." i'm alina cho. "newsroom international" starts right now. welcome to "newsroom international." i'm suzanne malveaux. around the world in 60 minutes. what's going on right now. high-ranking military officer gets caught up in the scandal that brought down general david patreaus. general john allen is under military investigation for